New York! New York! I Love You …

Hello all

Well, Valentine’s Day is done and dusted for another year, but I must say that the feeling has been lingering on for a few more days at least. You know what I mean, I’m talking about that feeling of … L-O-V-E.

As much as Geoff and I have never been huge fans of Valentine’s Day, I do love the way it reminds people to show love for one another. For instance, friends were making statements on Facebook like: “Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!”

Ahmed Ibraham the cabbie matchmaker.

It was rather nice to see all this camaraderie, but imagine my surprise when I opened my daily meditation book on the morning of the 14th February and read this:

“Some people looking for love have found help in an unusual place – a taxicab in New York City. Taxicab driver Ahmed Ibraham loves to set up blind dates for his single passengers. His matchmaking services have been featured on the Fox News Channel, the Wall Street Journal and NBC’s Today show. He doesn’t assist just anybody though; they have to be serious about looking to settle down with someone. Ahmed loves to help romance blossom and he even hands out roses on Valentine’s Day.” (Our Daily Bread Devotional)

My immediate thought was “How come I’ve never heard of this fellow before?” The truth is we can’t know everything that’s happening in New York can we? However, I didn’t expect to learn about this cab driver from reading a devotional book!

After doing a search with the help of my friend Mr. Google I found many references to Ahmed Ibraham; he is very well-known in America it seems. It turns out that Ahmed came across this ‘vocation’ by accident. He explains how it all began: (Seattle Times.com/html/nationworld)/cabbie30.html

“Playing Miss Lonelyhearts with a hack license comes naturally to Ibrahim, although he stumbled across the part accidentally. “I was joking around with this girl … who said she couldn’t find a boyfriend,” he recalled. Ibrahim took her number.

A man got in his cab three days later and bemoaned his bad luck finding a woman. Ibrahim called the woman and gave her the man’s number. She called back three weeks later and said they had gone on a date and were getting along great.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is my new project,’ ” he said. So he set about it with gusto, attempting matches for doctors, lawyers and students.”

So now Ibraham is in New York running a dating agency from his taxi cab! Another reference point says:

Since 2004, when he decided to spice up his work hours, Ibrahim has been collecting names and phone numbers of over 1,000 New Yorkers looking for the perfect match. He has organized more than 100 dates, and at least 30 of them have led to romances which have lasted for more than a year. www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/13/the-cupid-cabbie_n_822646.html

The original drawings of The Wizard of Oz

New York city is certainly an interesting place and I was just mulling on this when Gabrielle from The Fitzyreport.com/why-childrens-books-matter/ wrote a post about visiting an exhibition at the New York Public Library entitled ‘The ABC of It: Why Children’s Books Matter.’ How I would have loved to see this exhibition!

But, the next best thing is to share some of it with you here. The NY Library website states that the exhibition is “an examination of why children’s books are important: what and how they teach children, and what they reveal about the societies that produced them.”

Gabrielle – an Australian living in NYC – goes on to say:

“The exquisite exhibition celebrating children’s literature at the New York Public Library is the cause of many excited cries from the young and the older lovers of classic tales. Curated with the joy of storytelling itself, the exhibition displays not only books, but original illustrations, actual manuscripts and the inspiration behind many of our favorite characters.

The Wild Things, Pooh Bear and all the gorgeous irreverence of Dr Seuss take center stage. There is the wooden doll which served as a model for Mary Poppins (although perhaps not for Julie Andrews!) the original manuscript from The Secret Garden, illustrations from The Wizard of Oz and the drawings of Little Toot, as water-colorist Hardie Gramatky doodled and daydreamed in his studio looking out over the East River.” (read and see more photos over on her blog The Fitzyreport.com)

I love these books! Now, I am a great believer in reading to children and sharing books with them even when they are older. My granddaughter Alice (12) has given me the Hunger Gamesto read so I can understand why she loves the movies – and the books – so much. This is going to challenge me knowing as I do the savage nature of this book.

So friends, as I close this post I will leave you with a quote that I feel sums up New York – not that I have ever been there – but it seems to fit all that I have read about it.

“I look out the window and I see the lights and the skyline and the people on the street rushing around looking for action, love, and the world’s greatest chocolate chip cookie, and my heart does a little dance.” ~Nora Ephron

Just have to visit New York sometime soon …

PS.

So who is Nora Ephron? Nora co-wrote Sleepless in Seattle (1993), a romantic comedy in which lovers Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are separated for most of the film. You will not be surprised to know that she also co-wrote When Harry Met Sally. She died in 2012 of leukemia; her last film was Julie and Julia. Such a shame that there will be no more screenplays from her hand as I enjoyed all of these movies. Nora was born and lived in New York.

5 Comment(s)

‘SPECIALLY the bit about the children’s books … I adore them. I used to work in a public library that had a terrific kids’ section … but more than that, we all grew up (5 daughters) with parents to whom books were de rigueur – as they should be. We ain’t had nuthin’ like this Downunder. :-\

Oh weren’t you lucky working in a Library! As a child I used to walk for an hour to a special library far from home just so I could get books from it’s amazing children’s section. Like you M.R. my mother encouraged us six children to enjoy reading. Wouldn’t it be amazing if that exhibition came out to Australia? We had a Quilts exhibition here in Brisbane from the UK which had patchwork quilts going back to the 17th century. They had never been out of the UK Gallery before and were amazing. Perhaps I should get onto the State Library?!

I also worked in a library for a year, an academic librar but which had a special collection related to Lewis Carroll and his Alice books as he was at the college in question when he wrote them – and coincidentally I’ve just written a post in which the influence shows! It’s sad here in the UK that libraries are being shut down, books pulped, little local havens funded by philanthropic Victorian men vanishing. Also disappointing that one of our key local libraries has a ‘ library manager’ who communicates in management speak about ‘sign-posts’ and ‘partner services’. Oh for a row of shelves that promise adventure, discovery – even love – I used to enjoy visiting the main city library when I was a teenager for the ‘talent spotting’ as well as the literature! But children’s books always hold a special magic of private worlds for dreamy minds – The Little White Horse, Ballet Shoes, The Box of Delights, The Midnight Folk…… I feel some re-reading coming on – when I get a chance to unpack our books!

Oh how sad Mary, that libraries are closing down; that is not happening here thank goodness! You are the second person who has written to say they worked in a library! I think I missed my calling and would love to have been a librarian. I can only agree about children’s books. Reading was … and still is … my greatest joy. When I was a child I loved the library! Our libraries have diversified and we have Book Clubs (which I belong to) Spanish lessons and all types of things at our local library. Thanks for sharing Mary. I would love to have seen the Lewis Carrol and his Alice books. What a joy to see that! I belong to a Shakespeare group too and am enjoying studying it in a group with a dear old friend a former English teacher. Wonderful!

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